It's a great place for a film studio: Georgina Hurcombe on why LoveLove Films stays in Bournemouth

GEORGINA Hurcombe was only 25 when she set up her own production company.

Since then, LoveLove Films has made adverts, TV documentaries and four pop videos for Joss Stone, as well as corporate work.

Most recently, it made Martin Clunes: Riding Therapy, in which the Doc Martin star visited the Fortune Centre of Riding therapy at Bransgore.

“We have an animation in production for the Big Issue as well as working on TV adverts and graphic sequences,” said Georgina.

“In fact, we are in the midst of production of a hugely exciting project for a feature. I can’t say too much now but it’s pretty exciting stuff.”

Georgina “blagged” her first media job as a head fashion coordinator for a magazine, when she was 18 and chaperoning her little sister on a modelling shoot.

“After realising that I wanted to work in moving images, I decided to go to university at Bournemouth to study television production. I really fell in love with Dorset, and Bournemouth in general,” she said.

She went on to work for a succession of production companies before losing her job and deciding to set up on her own in 2010.

“For a while, the business consisted of me, a desk, and way too much coffee. I was extremely naive about the day-to-day of running a business, what it would actually entail. I didn’t know there would be so much paperwork for a start,” she said.

She became an employer and grew her team through a new talent placement scheme. Thirty placements a year help with anything from running on shoots to researching an.

“Bournemouth is great as we have some excellent educational institutions – in fact most of my full time team have come through our new talent placement scheme,” she said.

In 2015, the business won the Engagement with Education trophy at the Dorset Business Awards.

After its original tiny office sprung a leak, the company moved to a former Gospel hall which turned out also to have been a film studio. Cinechrome Studios in Winton was occupied in the 1950s by Billy Cotton and his son Bill, whose company Cinechrome Ltd produced promotional and factual films, some of which starred Diana Dors.

Georgina eventually bought and renovated the building. “I’d rather not talk about the time I cleaned the drains out – let’s just say I was covered in more than just dirt,” she said.

She says the business has thrived in Bournemouth. “It’s a great place to live and work; we have the seaside, the New Forest just down the road and some fantastic educational institutions on our doorstep pipelining out great talent,” she said.

“That, and there is a real buzz in the digital sector here and there is a real sense of community in that digital sector. I lived in London for a while, and I found the tube and commute every day exhausting. I remember being on the tube once with an armpit in my face thinking about how much I missed Bournemouth.

“I do love our capital but I also love being able to have a great work life balance here and having a barbecue on the beach in the summer. If I need to get into London it’s pretty easy and nowadays with Skype and such, we are a global village. We have clients all over the world, so why not have a production company in Bournemouth by the beach?”

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